Fela Kuti was an AIDS denialist
Fela's AIDS diagnosis and denialism was fairly well known and an open secret.
Culture
Blood on the chair
Platon, the New Yorker staff photographer got many of the world's leaders to sit for portraits. A number of African leaders obliged.
The Carnival at the Cape
The historian John Edwin Mason's photographs of Cape Town's New Year's Carnival.
You can now trust Nigerians
Recently advertising and the movies in the West have have been hard on Nigerians. Even when they mean well.
House music
Since it is Friday, I might as well put up a few music videos.
Let Robeson Sing
Manic Street Preachers pay homage to the greatest American of the first half of the twentieth century, Paul Robeson. The music video by Nigerian Andrew Dosunmu is a tribute too.
The New Black Atlantic
What does it mean when a Tanzanian rapper joins a cypher on BET, the US entertainment TV channel on its biggest night - during prime time - and rhymes in Swahili.
Family ties
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting news piece on the growing migration by Portuguese workers to Angola.
That’s Not Rugby
Don't expect "Invictus" to break from the "rainbow nation" narrative despite that symbolism's sell buy date having long expired.
The Radio Kalahari Orkes
The curious appeal of a band of celebrity Afrikaner musicians engaging with a quite easily defined past and present.
Race bingo and dancehall
A busy week means a lot of stuff gets the speed blog treatment. Among others, the African country that gets the worst treatment in US media.
A ranking by any other name
This story of Harvard political scientist, Robert Rotberg, and Sudanese billionaire, Mo Ibrahim, falling out, is quite something.
South Africa is far from Jamaica
Not sure why Ghostface Killah thought Vampire Weekend is riding a Jamaican riddim in the very popular song, 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.'
Mauled by an old lion
How Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's Life President since 1980, bested CNN's Christiane Amampour.
The Darkness in Senegal
The mixing of popular protest and music in protests over electricity cuts in Senegal.
Nigerian Millionaires
That time Nigeria's government objected to a commercial for SONY's PS3 video game console.
They Just Stood There Naked
What was Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, hoping to achieve with this dehumanizing image?
Love in Africa
This book explores love, that stuff most Western journalists rarely write about when they write about Africa.
Manufacturing controversy
The mass support for Caster Semenya among South Africans is paradoxical: of a country deeply divided, yet at certain moments strangely united around a common cause.
Hip Hop History 101, South African Session
The Cape Town group, Prophets of da City, should get credit for kickstarting South African hip hop. They were also politically righteous.